In view of increasing cyber crime cases being committed through various social networking sites, officers of the cyber crime police station educated the students of Dehradun based public schools- St Thomas school and Children’s Academy, about precautions to be observed while visiting social networking sites. Cyber Crimes Police Station team comprising sub-inspectors Ved Prakash Thapliyal, Rajeev Semwal, constables -Mukesh Kumar and Harendra Bhandari reached both the schools and interacted with the students and educated them about increasing cyber crimes and precautions to be observed while using social networking sites.
STF Uttarakhand SSP P Renuka Devi said that with the advancement of technology and increase in its accessibility, large numbers of students are using social networking sites and some of them do wrong full act through social networking sites knowingly or unknowingly.
On the occasion Cyber Crimes Police Station sub-inspector Ved Prakash Thapliyal talked about social media and highlighted about what are precaution youths to take while using social networking sites. Students should not past mobile phone number, email id, photo, identity card and other important information on social networking sites.
Ignorance is not bliss when it comes to using social media like Facebook and WhatsApp. If you act on your impulses being unaware of the provisions of IT Act you are likely to land in trouble. Upload anything you would not want everyone to see, assuming that it would remain generally unseen and you are likely to be in trouble.
For, anything put up will be revealed to the internet at large at some point, whether through hack, leak or change of privacy policy. Nothing is ever really off from the internet. Even if you delete a picture from your account it is still sitting on the server somewhere.
Thapliyal said that the youths who using social media on internet must know dos and don’ts.
One should use a strong password. Use privacy settings and insist your friends use them too. Never leave anything but the bare minimum as publically available. Make sure that only your accepted friends or followers can see what you put up. Even then leaks, hacks and privacy policy revisions are not unheard of.
Don’t assume what you post are secure, despite the settings. Users should verify friend/follower request. Don’t accept just anyone.
You must know what you are sharing your information with. Verify links, attachments, downloads, emails, anything sent to you. Even trusted friends could have had their accounts hacked. One should never put in more information about self unless absolutely necessary. Hackers, scammers, stalkers all use that information to do anything that might be harmful to one from the security point of view. On that same note, the speakers also stressed on the need for being careful while uploading real time information about themselves and their activities.